Yesterday I sustained the American economy. I’m trying to do my part, you know, to keep us from plummeting into a recession and reverting back to the Great Depression. So me and Amazon and Target, we bonded. With a little help from my Visa.
I would hate to see stores go out of business, or businesses flounder and the economy tank, all because I was too stingy. If I tried to live more frugally, then where would Walmart be? Or Costco? Those poor mall retailers, they need me.
But do I need them?
I loved Justine’s recent post on living a more-frugal, less-consumable life. The idea appeals to me, although in practice my tendency is to compensate for my weaknesses by throwing money at them (bad hair? salon! frumpy clothes? no sense of style? to the mall! or at least Target!). And I love Bishop Burton’s compelling talk, “More Holiness Give Me,” in which he discusses how “The meaning of more and less is not always crystal clear. There are times when less is in reality more and times when more can be less. For instance, less pursuit of materialism may enable more family togetherness. More indulgence of children may result in less understanding of life’s important values.”
But, um, if we all lived in a less-materialistic, less-indulgent way, what would the stores do? What would happen to our economy? If “less is more” on an individual and family level, is less also more on a societal level?
I assume there are economists out there with an answer to this question… but if you’re not an economist, answer anyway: Do we have any kind of responsibility to the retailers among us, to the people they employ? Me and my Visa, are we really needed in America?
i don’t know, emily. but i love to shop. year round.
I sustain the economy of Borders, Amazon.com (the books and music sections) and college bookstores. Because books sustain me, I sustain the book industry. And when I’m finished with throw away books, I give them away to my friends or charity organizations. My sister commented once that my books seemed to “have babies.” They ARE rather prolific where I live. I feel no such obligation to clothing retailers, or worse, toy stores. They depress me, so I avoid them. Books, on the other hand, have treasures inside of them. They contain wisdom, wit, and, (no more alliteration) possibilities I will only know about if I open their pages.
I’m not sure either extreme is healthy- meaning, I don’t think “less” means none. It is sometimes difficult for me to live within my means- but I’m finding that even as a poor student I have enough for some frivolous things here and there. So I think you can have your food storage and Target, too.
Em–LOL. I’m so excited to hear the diverging opinions on this idea (and Brooke–got ya babe. me too). This reminds me of an argument that my husband and I had during grad school (he was at-the-time finishing up his degree in International Relations and *GASP* economics) that purchasing goods made by child laborers would lift that country’s economy; and countries where the economy is stronger have little need (whether it’s legislated against or educated against or simply not needed because wages are high enough to make it only necessary that the adults in the family work) to employ children.
Economics is not the gospel. That’s for sure.
And given that it’s not, maybe we can’t really compare the two? Or does the gospel relate to every secular topic in some way?
As far as the economics go, I think if you save your money somewhere like a bank or mutual fund, it gets invested and supports the economy that way.
I, on the other hand, am managing my debt portfolio.
I drove up to the big city the other day, taking my husband to a meeting and the airport, and I did a little shopping downtown in the big department stores in between. My goodness there is something lovely about shopping.
Maralise, what you bring up is such an interesting vein. The blood diamond industry is so rife with violence and oppression, but the diamond industry comprises something like 94% of Angola’s GDP, so without the diamond industry, the entire country would be even worse off! And in emerging economies, just the fact that they are on the economic ladder is a step — they’ve moved up to be on the ladder. We might be higher up on the ladder, and have the luxury of regulation and child labor laws, but putting the country on the first rung of that ladder is a HUGE and important step.
And I think we underestimate the impact we are having in foreign markets. A call center employee in India, for example, has enough resources at his or her disposal to hire a couple of hands around the house. And it’s considered the height of rudeness NOT to hire help and recontribute to the economy.
Although I have a mild desire to never spend another penny anywhere on anything, I know it’s not realistic. And I’ve got to be honest here, I really hate shopping. I think it has something to do with the hussle and bussle of it all. Especially around Christmas time, I think I’m slightly sensory sensitive or something. All the noise and people and chaos really bothers me.
Another thing to consider, Emily, is that the personal debt we all carry also has a huge impact on the economy. It weighs into our national ability to hold off recession, and places the dollar in a weakened position globally. We become an economic house of cards, if you will. Once something collapses (the housing market, for instance) everything else becomes increasingly vulnerable as consumers aren’t prepared to absorb the shift.
In Newsweek last week, an economist put it well. He said that on a personal level, it is really smart to save, but if everyone in America did it, we would nose-dive into a recession (two consectutive quarters of loss in GDP) or even a depression (more than 10% lowering of GDP over a longer period of time, or a lowering of GNP). Make sense of that!
This is a good topic of discussion, Em!
Sadly, I love to shop too much to think deeply on this subject.
I appreciate you doing it for me.
Thanks Em.
Kalli–LOL! Sometimes I love shopping and sometimes I don’t… it depends what I’m buying. I love to shop for books and gifts for other people (it’s for someone else! I’m being giving! therefore no guilt!).
Barbara–my books breed too. I am pretty sure I spend more money on books than on clothes last year.
Johnna–does the savings invested and going back into the economy compensate for the money you didn’t spend at Target? And,depending on what I’m buying, there is something lovely about shopping.
Mara–I don’t know if the gospel relates to every secular topic in every way. This particular relationship seems worthy of discussion to me, in part because I want to know if I should feel warm and fuzzy for buying stuff instead of guilty. If I can march out of Target and say to myself “woohoo! I just did America and poor Bangladesh women proud!” then that would be nice. It’s interesting to figure out if and how the gospel and economics intersect.
Erin–less doesn’t mean none. Good point.
Justine, that global perspective is fascinating to me. When we buy stuff, we’re contributing to the global economy as well. So my buying more stuff may be good for the workers in Bangladesh who need their jobs, but bad for my kids who are taught to be attached to things.
Also the personal debt issue is interesting. I always hear all the credit card debt statistics–per capita American debt of six thousand dollars or something insane like that. I’m assuming that a good chunk of that is spent on consumer goods, and that those are made abroad. So if you take an American-centered perspective, going into debt to buy foreign-made consumer goods is 1-bad for the American economy, because it makes us less stable globally, and 2-good for all those other countries whose goods we are going into debt to consume. But it’s more tricky than that, because the retailers who sell foreign-made goods are here in America, employing Americans.
But if you’re not going into debt to buy your foreign-made stuff, then that means you are supporting both the economies of developing countries and the American retailers who stock their goods… so buying stuff is good. Unless you’re spending too much money and teaching your children bad values. Then it’s bad.
Whew!
domestic debt destabilizes foreign trading markets because so many of the trading exchanges are so tied up with our own. So our own personal debt may not be really doing any favors to foreign workers if we’re worsening the United States market outlook. You’re for sure right, this is complicated and tricky to maneuver if you think about it too much. There are eternal principles all tied up with mathematics and currency exchanges and other unpleasantries, so I don’t really know what the right answer is.
Maybe the answer is that we need to find our own individual answer for ourselves. Isn’t that the answer to almost every question out there? Because there is certainly not just one right way to tread through our lives, and not even one right way that applies during all the different times of our own lives.
Feel good about walking out of Target with a load of stuff. You’re contributing to the global economy. Just make sure none of it has lead paint on it! Go do some shopping for me, too!
This post has my brain and heart all twisted up. Great, great topic.
It’s interesting to figure out if and how the gospel and economics intersect.
I was mulling over this yesterday. Part of life is having jobs, and part of having jobs means having a market for the jobs we have.
The way I like to approach it is that we are told we can take care of our needs, and we shouldn’t feel guilty for that. I think all needs to some level require some consumption. I think it starts to run counter to the gospel to justify consumption on wants purely for the sake of helping.
But then again, maybe not. If we know for a fact that a certain purchase will benefit a poor group or individual somewhere, might that be a way to share our wealth?
I think it’s often a rare case when that kind of direct impact is present, though.
I dunno. I’m thinking out loud. I do know that whenever we make a purchase or have a need, we try to think if there is anyone we know who can provide the service or good so we can also benefit them. For example, a guy in our ward sold furniture and appliances, and so when we needed something like that, we bought from him because he was on straight commission. I don’t think much about the global, big economy though.
Thinking about how the whole system really is a house of cards dependent on spending freaks me out, though.
In the end, I agree with this:
Maybe the answer is that we need to find our own individual answer for ourselves. Isn’t that the answer to almost every question out there? Because there is certainly not just one right way to tread through our lives, and not even one right way that applies during all the different times of our own lives.
There simply is not a One Right Answer. That’s why we have the Spirit and gospel principles, so we can then exercise our agency. I think a key is that we think and care, and not just do things because everyone else is.
There are so many complicated moral issues tied into econmics, whether we are talking about child labor, the diamond trade, or the trade balance that I don’t think we can attach a straightforward “good” or “bad” label to a single spending spree in that sense. Is it good/bad to spend to support a system that is basically corrupt and not really sustainable as is, but a system that does provide some temporal security for many people at the moment? And would that be good/bad in the short or in the long term? For me the answer is that I would like to see many systemic level changes, and that I’m not sure my individual Christmas shopping is going to either hinder or bring those about. So I plan I personal budget in accordance with gospel principles. I don’t have any fear that suddenly my efforts at provident living will cause a recession, partly because most other people aren’t doing the same thing anyway, and secondly because if they were the economy might not continue to function in exactly the same way, but it would adapt and shift (ideally in my mind to a more sustainable, equitable model, but I’m not holding my breath).
Excellent discussion.
I read this post after just returning from Wal-Mart. Really. I don’t love shopping there, but the way I see it if I save money on toothbrushes and shampoo there I can spend it later to support a favorite mom and pop restaurant or the local quilt store. And I have two friends whose daugthers work at Wal-Mart; so no, I don’t even mind if some of my good money ends up at Wal-Mart.